Drostan

Under-rated: Kronos tops my list here... their community is awesome and they are activity based which makes for a rather reliable war machine. I really dig these guys. For me the only tough part is that they are allied to some people I don't have a whole lot of respect for. But that's CN. Kronos are no doubt awesome allies and that is the most important consideration. Definitely people worth knowing. Over-rated: Most alliances people chatter about most of the time. If community is the most important consideration, most alliances are just a group of age-worshiping imbeciles who desperately try to spam their forums into having a purpose. They are usually also xenophobic and not altogether that welcoming of newcomers and there exists a very clear distinction between the 'big deal' members and the rank and file. That sucks. I hate that. But of course newcomers love to try to gain the favor of the 'big deal' blabber mouths and so their reputation on Planet Bob is reinforced. I also dislike the big-talking do-nothing alliances. I don't really care if an alliance just wants to have fun and do nothing. But I do find it annoying when an alliance that has never shown its teeth at all rattles its sabre in public every other day sniffing for some controversy. If you're so bored of this game then delete yourself and play something else. It's some rare new form of abuse that has cropped up since a whole generation grew up sitting at their computers deriving their only remaining cyber thrill from antagonizing others. I have found CN has no shortage of these joyless idiots. I won't defend Sparta because frankly I don't feel like anything has gone on except the massive pendulum of CN public opinion has swung in the opposite direction for a while. Sure, we had a poor performance on the NPO front last time, but most of our bad reputation comes from bitter individuals trying their best to repeat this as often as possible. Many would never have even known had it not become such an echo among embittered NPO and other members. To these sentiments I shrug. I can honestly say that my hatred for the movie 300 is rivaled only by my hatred for 'Garden State' and I am not alone among Sparta's government or founders. It is easy to believe that we are based off of the most recent heroic portrayal of Sparta if your entire historical education hinges around what's playing at the local theatre. But some of us actually studied classics and enjoyed the idea of being in an ancient greek alliance. Based on the other ancient alliances out there, I guess we weren't alone. You will notice that there is a good deal of attic greek contained in our constitution and to my knowledge none appears in the movie 300. What's funny is seeing a Pacifican reinforce every negative stereotype about NPO total lack of interest in other alliances and its members total ignorance about the rest of Planet Bob. I hope that Pacifica is getting better and I've seen evidence to believe it so I don't want to condemn the entire alliance on one surly man's outbursts. What has been more upsetting to me is seeing several alliances I personally extended an olive branch to only to have it more or less slapped from my hand still weighing in against Sparta. We're not bad fellas over at Sparta and if you'd give us the time of day, you might learn that. But we don't mind being the unpopular kid on the block for a while. People and alliances that spend their time worrying about whether or not their alliance is cool are probably not for me anyway. Every alliance has some skeletons in its closet, but one thing you'll notice is that Sparta will always engage with you and speak about them. We don't try to pretend that we haven't had problems, we try to fix them. I'm proud of my time in Sparta, even when we looked bad, because I knew that Sparta had my back even when I looked bad.

All this dancing around is absurd. I do agree that people need to decide prior to posting whether they are going to try to 'call someone out' or not so that this confusion doesn't run rampant. I am sorry that BTA did not find NOIR an appropriate home, and I think that NOIR still remains fertile ground for alliances, but I wish them good luck in the Purple Sphere. Not everyone gets along and sometimes it's just better to make a fresh start I guess. Purple has always seemed reasonably cool to me, and so I sincerely hope that BTA finds whatever it is looking for there. *shrugs*

I look forward to more Cristopher Walken pics and whatever big bad shenanigans you get up to. *tips hat*

Hopefully even if we don't have any paper on the table, we can continue to stay in touch. Perhaps moreso than when we did have paper on the table heh. You cannot should not fault an alliance for cancelling a treaty that they think no longer holds the value it did when it was signed. This is the only way to go if we want treaties to mean something again. This is the way forward. Good luck to IRON in the future. Don't be strangers!

I love the beacon of light image. If you don't know Athens, you're missing out imo.

I think this summarizes the discourse so far quite succinctly: I am glad so many of you decided to stop by and spit in our eyes like the classy gentleman you prove yourselves to be time and time again. I think it's "probably a good idea" if people check their raging hormones before replying here lest they forget diplomacy and decency altogether. It is a shame when alliances drift apart but acknowledging it is the first step towards potential betterment of it. Don't be strangers.

Start criticizing alliances that sign too many treaties then. Because as someone has already stated, probably that handsome devil Jack Diorno, that is what leads to stagnation. It hasn't really been that long since the Karma war ended, and RAD and NSO just had a little wrestling match a few days ago. Why don't you just slap the Sith in the face if you want conflict? I am sure they'd be glad to oblige.

Pretty pathetic blitz imo. I expected better from the mighty RAD war machine, though knowing them, it could be a trick... [ooc]you failed to anarchy the OWF![/ooc]

I don't really get this but enjoy trying to do whatever you intend to do to VE. Also, you should have combined these announcements. [ooc]Your flag is made by a photoshop newb. The circle around the 'rays' is not a true vector circle but a pathetic and slightly eccentric ellipse which is painful to the eye. In the VE edit one, one of the rays protrudes through the circular part in the top right corner. heh.[/ooc]

I was hardly trying to make a big deal of it but merely pointing out that it seemed unnecessary in the context to point out how badly we'd lose if this absurd fight ever took place. Flak's comments certainly were not meant to be flattering, and I was merely pointing out that there is really no need for these comments at all let alone phrased as such. Anyway, I really hadn't given it a second thought. EDIT: If you want to discuss our Constitution, elpadrino, this is not the place to do it as you well know. But as a quick answer to your question, we do not recruit solely for the good of everyone else, it is mutually beneficial. But the dynamic of the world is such that there always needs to be alliances willing to invest in newbies. It certainly is not just us who does this. We allow secession quite freely for members who wish to pursue their careers elsewhere and welcome them to come back if they choose down the road. The specific instance that is being referred to in our Constitution is one in which a member who plans to leave and actively tries to convince a number of other Spartans to leave with him/her immediately before leaving without consulting leadership. Basically forming a sub-alliance within Sparta with the express intention of leaving en masse without first consulting with leadership. The problem is that we are a very integrated community, and often there are debts etc that need to be settled, but anyone is free to resign at any time for any reason on good terms so long as they make the attempt to sort this stuff out. If you want to discuss this further I suggest you approach us in a more appropriate forum.

I think Humility is best of the options but I would head back to the drawing board personally.

O rly? I think that this is fairly straight forward. In most cases you seek individual punishment and then escalate if the government of the alliance proves uncooperative. If the offender is a government member, I still think you should attempt to communicate with the rest of the government to work out a solution (read coup), but I can understand how a leader attacking your nations would prompt you to go to war with their alliance.

Yeah, yeah, your words reflect on your alliance at all times etc etc. But what's the lessen to be learned here? Alliances should gag more of their members to prevent being embarassed? That'll help the community. Or maybe it's that we should damn an entire alliance because one individual gets mad? Maybe if it's their leader. I think the onus should be on the readers not to foolishly extend a member's comments to be an official policy, but that's consistently what gets done, and so people have begun prefacing themselves. It's annoying but I can see why people feel the need to do it. Add to that the fact that many here build their entire reputation on purposely twisting people's words in order to perpetrate a sort of sleight-of-mind argument that really has nothing to do with the author's original comments, and you can see why people feel the need to wear that preface as an aegis. [ooc]I would like to think that people actually pay attention to what forum they are posting in, and yet, I cannot tell you how often words I spoke OOC in a non-game-related forum have been attributed to my IC persona and alliance... well only a few times really, but that's a few times too many. [/ooc]

Did someone send a mass message to MK indicating that they should go out of their way to insult Sparta while replying here? Totally uncalled for. Anyway, I cannot imagine any good reason for war between TOP and Sparta. The conspiracy theory you speak of is a popular 'wish-list' conflict because people are already starting to get bored with peace. The truth is that Planet Bob harbours a lot of bloodthirsty people. Not every alliance can be concentrated in the upper tiers and without alliances that accept newbies, those people never learn anything and never become educated members of society. I urge people to keep in mind that they too were once a newbie (and some of you reading this probably still are). Back to the newbie who opened this topic, you need to be careful what sort of stuff you say openly when you're new, because many around here tend to hold long grudges. You'll get a feel for it with time. Good luck. Oh, and I should also mention that we really have no designs on the top spot and rank is quite far down on our list of priorities. I think most who know us are well aware of that, and it is reflected in the comments. Every alliance has a different reason to be, and ours is not rank and bragging points.

It would appear that RyanGDI is suffering from an extreme case of hubris. It is always better to admit your mistake and try to make good than to foment a war in order to preserve your pride. I hope that Ryan will come to his senses and end this madness.

I must say, this treaty is as refreshing as [ooc?]Campari[ooc?] on a hot day. Best of luck to the Family.

Hehe, I wanted him to join Sparta but he's sanctioned on every sphere. I actually love this guy. I've had to smack him down a few times myself since he attacks rather indiscriminantly. Don't waste your money, the only one who can get rid of wampler is Admin, and even then... who knows.

So are you likening 890765 to Socrates or something?

I am glad to see that TPF will not be consigned to the geological record any time soon. Congratulations on establishing peace.

I'm working on Sparta ... brick by brick... that's how the wall comes down! Anyway, new alliances often end up being sort of like farm teams for the bigger ones. After a few months of toil on the part of alliance leaders, they often get absorbed into another big alliance and the cream of the crop probably end up getting a government post or something. New alliances are a great way to get more back-end experience with running an alliance and so I think constitute a necessary part of the circle of life here on Planet Bob. I like new alliances.

" As if this were such an easy thing to distinguish. The truth is that bandwagoning was part of the "House Rules" from the previous era. I sincerely hope that Planet Bob will not react with shock and horror when alliances come to the aid of those they feel akin to even if they don't sign treaties. Sparta has many close friends that we do not have a formal treaty with these days. The trouble is that when you link yourself to an alliance you link yourself to all of their other treaty friends too. And sometimes that just doesn't make sense. Two alliances may well hate each other but have a mutual friend. Diplomacy based on friendship instead of law is a risky business though, as when the storm clouds gather, all you have to rely on is an alliance's sense of decency. However, it also allows an alliance a lot more autonomy and keeps it on its toes because it can't become too reticent based on the strength of its allies. This approach requires a very active diplomacy that I think few alliances are willing to try. Generally bandwagoners are those who jump in on the winning side. If you jump in on the losing side without a formal treaty you can become a martyr and those are much more well-respected than bandwagoners. EDIT: Ultimately, I agree that an alliance's actions should reflect what it feels to be right. Often times, I would hope, this will be honouring their treaty obligations. But not having a treaty should not ever stop an alliance from defending someone they feel the need to defend. You may have to endure some sticks and stones but you can't put a price on backbone.

It's funny because this is an RP community in the sense that you can get banned for not being In Character on the forums. I got dinged several times for ooc in my first days here so I started to build more of a character in the IC forums. It's not a huge difference but it is there. I speak more frankly in the OOC forums, or at least I did until people started to attribute my OOC comments to my IC alliance. Genius. Basically this place is a frankenstein's monster of RP and non-RP and nobody is playing by the same rules. It makes it hard to have a consistent character in any particular way. Your best bet is to stick with short answer snarky posts that are ambiguous as to IC or OOC content. Or at least that seems to be the most common method of dealing with these complications. Although it is true that there are many pent up angry nerds in RP communities, I don't think it's a universal. I am pretty combative in real life and certainly do not come off as shy. But that doesn't make me mean.

I like small-scale wars. I want to see a planet that's not afraid to let two alliances duke it out.

Drostan is somewhat based on the flippant and often reckless Mark Antony character but with more interest in politics/philosophy. The idea is that his carelessness with speech often conceals a clever motive for acting so outlandish. He is not afraid of disgrace and in fact is prepared to use it to his advantage if need be. Though he takes ethical questions seriously he often expresses a bemused attitude that betrays his true conviction. I would say that this is an element of my persona in real life but it is much amplified in Drostan. I am lucky (though not always as sometimes you want it to) because my real life persona does not show through much at all in online communities. That's great for role-playing games (except that my online personality can be a real jerk) as I don't have to watch too carefully. I had a lot of trouble with the IC/OOC lines when I first joined the boards because I found the Vox pseudo-philosophy tl;dr posts really annoying and didn't really care about the in-game politics much. Though it is getting better with time as one would expect. I am much more rigorous and close-kept with my tl;drs in real life (aka my essays). I am more cocky in real life than I am in CN since I joined this game only a year ago and its history goes back for several. It's funny because the distinction between my IC and OOC persona are clearly there but they are more difficult for me to self-analyze than I'd have thought. Though in that post about which forum poster type you are I think I gave a good break-down of my forum persona.

Yeah, they claim to have fixed it, and yet you still see lots of reports of people using very similar exploits that work. Really it's just because people are lazy with their settings for the most part. There are plenty of communities around with pre-made scripts that will allow you to hack popular forums especially if they are not configured to be secure. While it is possible that a random person found your forums and hacked them because they were vulnerable, it is far more likely that it was an 'inside job' as they say. I think you probably gave someone your password at some point or some very similar circumstance. If it was truly a griefer using an exploit, why would they stop? Allegedly you haven't done anything to prevent them from repeating their exploit again and so you'd expect a vendetta type guy to hit you again. Anyway, I don't know who this was, but I do know that it's not very common for CN alliance's forums to get targeted.